2017 Conference Program

Beyond the Postcolonial?: Meaning-Making and South Asian Studies in the 21st Century

You can download the 2017 Conference Program here as a PDF file. You can also read the Conference Abstracts here or download them as a PDF file.

Keynote Address: “Rethinking the Postcolonial Through Fanon’s New Writings”
Prof. Robert J.C. Young, New York University-Abu Dhabi

robert-jc-youngProf. Robert J. C. Young is Silver Professor of English and Comparative Literature and Dean of Arts and Humanities, NYU-Abu Dhabi. His seminal works, White Mythologies: Writing History and the West (1990) and Colonial Desire: Hybridity in Theory, Culture, and Race (1995) are considered revolutionary and radical in the field of postcolonial studies. He has published over 15 monographs, which have been translated into Tamil, Chinese, Turkish, Arabic, and other languages. He is the editor of Interventions and co-founder of the postcolonial seminar at University of Oxford and New York University.

Prof. Young’s work is primarily concerned with people and cultures at the margins of society both nationally and globally. His work on how to retrieve the knowledge and histories of such communities requires us to rethink some of the theoretical issues about our practice of literary, historical, and cultural analyses in postcolonial studies.

MONDAY: JANUARY 2, 2017
4:00-6:00 PM
MEETING: SALA Executive Committee (Sherman)

DAY 1: TUESDAY: JANUARY 3, 2017
8
:00 AM onward REGISTRATION (Foyer)

9:00-9:20 AM CONFERENCE WELCOME: Moumin Quazi, SALA President (Franklin/Jefferson)
OPENING: Priya Jha, Prathim-Maya Dora-Laskey, and Melanie R. Wattenbarger, Conference Co-Chairs

9:30-10:45 AM SESSION 1 (PANELS 1A, 1B, & 1C)

Panel 1A Placing People: Identity Formation on the Move
(Room: Franklin)
Panel Chair: Asha Jeffers, York University
1. ‘The Question Remains… of Your Place’: Challenging Reductive Identities in Ayad Akhtar’s Disgraced
Robin Field, King’s College
2. Transition, Translation, Assimilation: From ‘Migratory’ to ‘Settled’ in Bangladeshi Diasporic Fiction
Nasia Anam, Williams College
3. Dark Moon, Bright Crescent: Tagore in China
Cynthia Leenerts, East Stroudsburg University of Pennsylvania

Panel 1B Literature and the Development of a Youthful Nation
(Room: Jefferson)
Panel Chair: Amritjit Singh, Ohio University
1. What Young Asia Wants: Can Chetan Bhagat and Mohsin Hamid Tell Us?
John Hawley, Santa Clara University
2. Neo-Liberalism and the Threshold of Disappearance of Feminist Scholarship: A Critique of Hamid’s Getting Filthy Rich in Rising Asia
Zia Ahmed, Bahauddin Zakariya University, Multan
3. Crossing Disciplinary Borders to Comprehend the Poetics of Nation and Region: Parijaat as a Feminist Icon of Colour
Mallika Shakya, South Asian University
4. Beyond the Postcolonial: Post-national Longing in Ritwik Ghatak’s Partition Cinema
Shumona Dasgupta, University of Mary Washington

Panel 1C Theoretical Interventions
(Room: Penn)

Panel Chair: Nalini Iyer, Seattle University
1. Postcolonial or Ghost-Colonial? Moving Beyond the Inertia of the ‘Post’
Waseem Anwar and Summer Pervez, Forman Christian College University
2. Beyond the Spectre, beyond the Ethnoterritorial
Abdollah Zahiri, Seneca College, King Campus, Toronto
3.What’s in a Name? Imagining the Impossibility of the Postcolonial Radical
Aniruddha Mukhopadhyay, Texas A&M University, Kingsville

11:00 AM-12:00 PM SESSION 2 (PANELS 2A, 2B, & 2C)

Panel 2A (Refiguring) Violent Subjects
(Room: Franklin)
Panel Chair: Priya Jha, University of Redlands
1. From Postcolonial to Post-9/11: A Study of the Contemporary Pakistani American Fiction
Muhammad Waqar Azeem, Binghamton University-SUNY
2. A Dialectics of Violence: Making Sense of Neel Mukherjee’s Naxalite Narrative in the ‘Age of Terror’
Meghan Gorman-DaRif, University of Texas at Austin
3. When Person Becomes Problem
Melanie R. Wattenbarger, Independent Scholar

Panel 2B Literary Market-Making and the Postcolonial
(Room: Jefferson)
Panel Chair: Jana Fedtke, American University of Sharjah
1.
Swirling Tales and Questioning Theories: Reading Rushdie’s Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights via R. Radhakrishnan
Pennie Ticen, Virginia Military Institute
2. Against Postcolonial appropriation? Navayana’s Anti-caste Stance and the Politics of Publishing
Ruma Sinha, Syracuse University
3. The Visible invisible in the Pre-Postcolonial: Towards an Epistemic Reprioritization
Shahzeb Khan, University of the Punjab, Lahore

Panel 2C Coming of Age: Negotiating Identity(s) and Diasporic Belonging
(Room: Penn)
Panel Chair: Prathim-Maya Dora-Laskey, Alma College
1. Meaning-Making and Second Generation Immigrant Experience in 21st Century Immigrant Novels in the US
Shivaji Sengupta, Boricua College
2. Master of None and the Subtleties of Second Generation-ness
Asha Jeffers, York University
3. Asian Indian American Children’s Creative Writing: An Approach for Cultural Preservation
Kalpana Iyengar and Howard Smith, University of Texas at San Antonio

12:00-1:30 PM LUNCH AT HOTEL

1:45-3:00 PM SESSION 3: PRESIDENT’S FORUM
(Room: Franklin/Jefferson)
Graduate Student Professionalization and Mentoring

Panel Chair: Moumin Quazi and Aniruddha Mukhopadhyay
Panelists: Prathim-Maya Dora-Laskey, Alma College
Priya Jha, University of Redlands
Aniruddha Mukhopadhyay, Texas A&M University- Kingsville
Moumin Quazi, Tarleton State University

3:15-4:30 PM  SESSION 4: Mid-Career Professionalization Panel: Academic Energies: Maintaining Momentum after Tenure
(Room: Franklin/Jefferson)
Panel Chair: Madhurima Chakraborty, Columbia College Chicago
Panelists: Kavita Daiya, George Washington University
Nalini Iyer, Seattle University
Amritjit Singh, Ohio University
Pranav Jani, Ohio State University

                                               END OF SESSIONS FOR DAY 1

4:30-5:25 PM GRADUATE CAUCUS (led by Asha Jeffers)
(Room: Franklin/Jefferson)

5:30-6:45 PM GENERAL BUSINESS MEETING
(Room: Franklin/Jefferson)

6:45-8:15 PM DINNER on your own

8:30-10:00 PM Hamara Mushaira: Literary Arts Event
(Room: Franklin/Jefferson)

Organized and moderated by Amritjit Singh, Ohio University
Invited Readers: Sohrab Homi Fracis (Distinguished Achievement Awardee)
Waqas Khwaja
Also featuring several members of SALA

DAY 2: WEDNESDAY: JANUARY 4, 2017
8:15
– 9:15 AM REGISTRATION (Foyer)

9:30-10:30 AM SESSION 5 (PANELS 5A, 5B, & 5C)

Panel 5A Bombs Away
(Room: Franklin)
Panel Chair: Melanie R. Wattenbarger, Independent Scholar
1. Two Novels of Nuclear Bombay Today
Michaela Henry, Brandeis University
2. Tactical Fabulations: Disrupting Nuclearization through Postcolonial Ecologies
Dibyadyuti Roy, Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Indore
3. Lions and Tigers and Bombs: (Un)Becoming Animal at the Baghdad Zoo
Edward Mallot, Arizona State University

Panel 5B Education and Activism
(Room: Jefferson)
Panel Chair: Summer Pervez, Forman Christian College-University
1. Indian Campus and the Problematics of Caste: A Study of Select Indian Campus Novels in English
Krishanu Adhikari, University of Hyderabad
2. Performing a New Nationalism, Looking (within and) Beyond the Postcolonial Narrative: A Recent History of Student Movement(s) in India
Shreyosi Mukherjee, National University of Singapore
3. The Postcolonial Novel and Cosmopolitics: Teaching Rohinton Mistry’s A Fine Balance
Masood Raja, University of North Texas

Panel 5C Unstated/Undocumented
(Room: Penn)
Panel Chair: Pallavi Rastogi, Louisiana State University
1. Stateless Citizens: Rupa Bajwa’s The Sari Shop and the Failure of the National Subject
Khem Guragain, York University
2. Rethinking ‘The Politics of Invisibility and Unreadability’ in Desai’s The Inheritance of Loss and Parajuly’s Land Where I Flee
Binod Paudyal, University of Utah
3. ‘Keeping this Damn Country in the Black: Illicit Economies and Subversive Commercial Space in Hanif Kureishi’s My Beautiful Launderette
José Sebastián Tereus, Arizona State University

10:45 AM-11:45 AM  SESSION 6 (PANELS 6A, 6B, & 6C)

Panel 6A Writing Religion
(Room: Franklin)
Panel Chair: Moumin Quazi, Tarleton State University
1. Hanuman Goes Graphic: Secularization and Postcolonial Anxiety in Simian
Anuja Madan, Kansas State University
2. Reclaiming as Revolution: Revisiting Indian Mythology through the             Perspectives of the Marginalized
Shoba Sharad Rajgopal, Westfield State University
3. Manufacturing the Marvels and Wonders of ‘Hindoostan’ in the Gilded Age: The 1893 Chicago Exposition and the Parliament of Religions
Nilak Datta, BITS Pilani, K K Birla Goa Campus

Panel 6B The Nation and Ruin
(Room: Jefferson)
Panel Chair: Pranav Jani, Ohio State University
1. Beyond the Imagined Space: N(either) N(or) Dilemma in M G Vassanji’s The Assassin’s Song
Smithi Mohan and G. S. Jayashree, University of Kerala
2. Artefact, Ruin, Landscape: Re-Activating Transnational Islamicate Heritage in 20th Century Pakistani Women’s Writing
Diviani Chaudhuri, Binghampton University
3. Postcolonial Disaster: Narrating the Catastrophe in the 21st Century
Pallavi Rastogi, Louisiana State University

Panel 6C Local/Global
(Room: Penn)
Panel Chair: Shreyosi Mukherjee, National University of Singapore
1. Remembering the dismembered local: Addressing metropolitan Postcolonialism in the 21st-Century
Asif Iqbal, Michigan State University
2. Cutting Down on Visibility: Globalism, Delhi and the Irrational
Bryan Hull, Portland Community College
3. The Culture of location of the ‘Global’: Interrogating a Discourse of ‘Localism’ in the Tribes of North East India
Namrata Pathak, Dibrugarh University, Assam

11:45 AM-1:15 PM LUNCH AT HOTEL

1:30-2:30 PM SESSION 7 (PANELS 7A, 7B, &7C)

Panel 7A Neoliberalism and South Asian Literature
(Room: Franklin)
Panel Chair: Aniruddha Mukhopadhyay, Texas A&M University-Kingsville
1. Radical Realism and Mahasweta Devi’s Leftist Literary Commitment
Madhurima Chakraborty, Columbia College Chicago
2. Neocolonialism, Elitist Discourse and the Silent Subaltern in Kamila Shamsie’s Novels
Naila Sahar, University of Buffalo, SUNY
3. A Zone of Incidence: Where Colonial and Neoliberal Meet
Debojoy Chanda, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Panel 7B Animal/Human: Interventions on the Anthropocene
(Room: Jefferson)
Panel Chair: J. Edward Mallot, Arizona State University
1. Materialities of the Non-human Animal and Post-Colonial Remains in Contemporary Writing
Java Singh, Jawaharlal Nehru University
2. Ecocriticism: Crossing Boundaries between Human and Nonhuman Spheres Jamil Ahmed’s The Wandering Falcon
Ifrah Afzul, Pakistan Institute of Fashion and Design
3. Coalescing the Human and Animal in Aamer Hussein’s Another Gulmohar Tree: An Ecocritical Inquiry
Arjmand Bano, Lahore Garrison University

Panel 7C Gender, Nation, Narration
(Room: Penn)
Panel Chair: Alison Klein, University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth
1. The Graphic Turn: The Pakistani Girl as a Narrator and Citizen
Tehmina Pirzada, Purdue University
2. Phoenix Narratives: Considering the Construction of Femininity in South Asian Memoir
Colleen Lutz Clemens, Kutztown University
3. Intimacy Beyond Identity: Friendship and Utopia in Vikram Seth’s A Suitable Boy
Nisha Eswaran, McMaster University

2:45-4:00 PM SESSION 8 (PANELS 8A, 8B, & 8C)  

Panel 8A Long Partitions: Comparative Divisions in and Beyond South Asia    Roundtable
(Room: Franklin)
Panel Chair: Rahul Gairola, IIT Roorkee
Panelists: Amrita Ghosh, Seton Hall University
Nalini Iyer, Seattle University
Debali Mookherjea-Leonard, James Madison University
Masood Raja, University of North Texas
Amritjit Singh, Ohio University

Panel 8B Identity, Culture, and Gender
(Room: Jefferson)
Panel Chair: Robin Field, King’s College
1. The V-(irgintarian) Life in the New World: Construing Jhumpa Lahiri’s Unaccustomed Earth
Maimoona Khan, Government College University, Lahore
2. ‘Unnatural Offences,’ Postcolonial Problems: The Ambivalent Position of Hijras in Contemporary Law and Literature
Sarah Elizabeth Newport, University of Manchester

Panel 8C Landscape Beyond the Colonial Project
(Room: Penn)
Panel Chair: Cynthia Leenerts, East Stroudsburg University of   Pennsylvania
1. The Age of Flowers: Linnaean Imperialism in Amitav Ghosh’s River of Smoke
Stacey Balkan, Bergen Community College
2. Sublime Spaces on the Margins of Empire (and Postcolonial Studies): Colonial Himalayan Travel Narratives
Moinak Choudhury, University of Minnesota
3. Beyond Spice Trade and Temple Conquests: Palimpsest Memories of Colonial Regimes along the Malabar Coastline in the Native Imagination
Maya Vinai, BITS- Pilani, Hyderabad

                                                END OF SESSIONS FOR DAY 2 

4:45-5:45 PM RECEPTION with CASH BAR
(Room: Franklin/Jefferson)

6:00-7:30 PM CONFERENCE KEYNOTE ADDRESS AND AWARDS
(Room: Franklin/Jefferson)     

Robert J. C. Young, New York University, Abu Dhabi
“Rethinking the Postcolonial Through Fanon’s New Writings”

SALA 2017 AWARDS CEREMONY
Sohrab Homi Fracis
SALA Distinguished Achievement in Creative Writing Awardee

Robert J. C. Young, New York University, Abu Dhabi
SALA Distinguished Achievement in Scholarship Awardee

P. S. Chauhan, Arcadia University

SALA Distinguished Achievement in Scholarship and Service Awardee

Graduate Student Paper Prize(s)

8:00-10:00 PM SALA CONFERENCE DINNER (tickets $25)
Karma Restaurant and Bar, 246 Market Street